Over at Good Reports I’ve added a review of Max Fisher’s The Chaos Machine, an excellent overview of the social evil that is social media. Better to stay off it entirely, but if you really must you should at least be aware of how damaging, manipulative, and deliberately addictive it is.
I think I was on Facebook for about a month ten years ago, and I’ve never been on Twitter or paid much attention to it. I’ve even wondered if blogging is all that innocent. There are days I’m pretty sure the whole Internet was a path we shouldn’t have gone down. The costs have been huge, and did it do that much to improve our lives? Made shopping easier mainly.
Alex Good 
Hmmm…the 20th century didn’t seem that great, but ended with 50 plus years of limited war and general peace. The new technology of the internet in the 21st century provided opportunist power-brokers a window of opportunity to manipulate people’s reasons for voting. Mysteriously, long denied referendums on Scotland’s future, voting on the UK’s position in Europe and uber-rich US politicians were all suddenly on the table on the grounds that the correct result could be elicited. The population could be turned against each other with the drop of an algorithm. Yup, I’d say social media promised us all good things, but got manipulated by bad people. That’s why I use Myspace.
LikeLike
It’s interesting that MySpace is one of Fisher’s examples of what things could have been like before the algorithms twigged to just how easily people could be manipulated by pressing all our basest buttons. We just seem locked into an addictive downward spiral or doom loop now and we’re still not fully aware of all the damage that’s been caused.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Crikey is MySpace still going? I used to be on that, thought it had been discontinued.
LikeLike
I think it’s sorta still out there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wouldn’t be able to get back in sadly, am sure my page was full of interesting things. (Not- but they were sparkly!)
LikeLike
I remember the first iteration of my first site, Goodreports, back in 1998. Clip art! Ah, the glory days of clip art.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And sparkly gifs!
LikeLike
I was so thrilled by those animated gifs that looked like they were spinning (or sparkling). I had one of those as a logo. Now they’re what you get in an emoji.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The wonders of technology.
LikeLike
I’m losing count of your blogs! I recently watched a documentary along similar lines, The Social Dilemma which was on Netflix, think it’s on youtube (!) now, but it was eyeopening and I’ve not been on Twitter or FB since, though I do check family to steal photos for their Xmas calendars! The manipulation (political, financial etc) of people through these sites, especially facebook is insidious and dangerous. It’s easy to say ‘oh I won’t get sucked in’ but people don’t even know they’re being played like a kipper.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, The Social Dilemma was good. This is even more up to date and really backs up the findings with more research. And people who don’t think they’re being played are just kidding themselves. The platforms know you better than you know yourself.
LikeLiked by 2 people